As voters were successively nauseated by the three vicious hit pieces mailed against Huntington Beach Council candidate Jill Hardy, a lot of people started asking who was responsible. The pieces were vile, filled with lies, and very personal.

Jill Hardy

And it’s not as if this filth is being hurled at some lazy cynical politician like Matthew Harper, currently making a pit stop at the City Council level on his way up a career ladder, while he collects a no-work paycheck in some County agency. Jill Hardy is a genuinely good person, an active participant in her church’s music program and youth ministry, devoted to her job as a high school math teacher, a caring mother of young children. As an elected official Jill Hardy has always been polite and respectful, in sharp contrast to the smarmy Don Hansen, who nastily berates residents who speak in public comments. In her eight years on the City Council, she took the time to listen carefully to each public speaker, to meet with neighbors, and to study issues in depth. Jill is the public representative we all want but rarely find.

The smear mailers refer to actual incidents, but are viciously slanted with outright lies. One piece is devoted to the crocodile tears of crazy Tammy Agajanian. Her son, who was over 18 at the time, caught the flu when he was on a field trip with the Model United Nations program in Moscow where Jill Hardy was one of the leaders. The young man received medical attention, accompanied by one of the male leaders, and got better. Is this “child endangerment,” as it is referred to in the hate mail? Considering that every legal definition of the term refers to a child under the age of 18, and it is a legal term, this would be libel, pure and simple, if Jill were not considered a “public figure.”

The pieces are most disturbing because they are so personal, and so deeply insult the core of Jill’s values and her chosen career as a high-school teacher. But they are even worse because they serve as an object lesson for any decent person who wants to run for elected office in Orange County. Cowardly bullies are willing to come after you with a huge sums of money, and they will say anything, do anything to take you down.

So we started asking what sort of sick bastard could have come up with this crap. And more importantly, who would have funded something like this.

That’s where the record starts showing that the assholes who did this are not just mean, but they are also cowards, violating campaign disclosure laws to hide the source of the funds.

Lawbreaker David Bauer

The pieces do have the required disclosure language. They are paid for by the Atlas PAC, a far-right membership PAC devoted to “life, liberty, and the pursuit” as their website proclaims. And if Atlas PAC and their scumbac Sacramento professional treasurer, David Bauer, were following the law, we would be able to click on this link and see who contributed the $70,000 to pay for the hit pieces. But we see that Atlas PAC had less than $3,000 in the bank as of September 30th, 2012, and they have chosen not to file their campaign reports on time for the period ending October 20th.

They face a certainty that they will be fined by the FPPC, but that’s not a very big deal. Their campaign treasurer with the Sacramento Wayne Johnson agency, David Bauer, conspired with the supporters of Proposition 8 and didn’t disclose over a million dollars in late contributions before the 2008 election. Two years after their violations, and after a thorough audit, Bauer and his client subsequently negotiated a fine of $49,000, which critics decried as a typical slap on the wrist for egregious and deliberate violations of campaign finance laws.

So we don’t know who paid for this crap. A check of the usual suspects like OCBIZPAC, OCTAXPAC, the Lincoln Club, and right wing politicos shows no contributions to Atlas PAC reported on their filings to the FPPC or FEC.

Lying Coward Ben Pugh

But we have a pretty good idea who orchestrated it. At an Atlas PAC fundraiser at Old World Village on Sunday, Benjamin Pugh, an Atlas PAC director, was “strutting around with a shit-eating grin on his face, receiving slaps on the back from his knuckle-dragging friends, ” according to reports from a source who prefers to remain anonymous. Pugh is the only Director of Atlas PAC who lives in Huntington Beach, and a quick search of the Google shows that he hosted a reception for Matthew Harper’s aborted Assembly campaign at his Huntington Beach home at 606 Delaware.

Pugh was a contemporary of Jill Hardy’s in high school, where we can bet he didn’t sit with the cool kids, although he was is in the Edison’s tennis hall of fame for 1989-90. A contemporary of his at Edison remembers, “He was a liar and a cheat then.”

So the best guess is that the anti-Jill slime campaign was hatched by Pugh, Huntington Beach Council Member Matthew Harper, and Harper’s much shorter look-alike, “Toll Lane” Don Hansen. Hansen, once seen as an up and coming Republican star, is now termed out, but is still attempting to do further damage to the City of Huntington Beach with his Measure Z campaign, which will strip millions from the city budget after he is out of office.

Hansen has failed dismally during the last few years. The family political consulting business, Red Zone Strategies, was a disaster in the 2010 campaign, as his candidates paid exorbitant consulting fees to his wife’s business and then lost.

Council majorities handed Hansen defeats on employee contracts, Hansen’s foolish attempt to outsource the City Attorney’s department, and on his attempt to put fireworks on the ballot as a Charter amendment. Hansen couldn’t even muster a majority of his fellow Republicans to support him on his efforts to add toll lanes to the 405 Freeway.

But there’s still the money. Somebody pitched in close to $90,000 to mail around 200,000 pieces of four-color 8 ½ by 11 flats to Huntington Beach voters. That’s a lot of money for a city the size of Huntington Beach, and it is a huge sum to go after one candidate. The only candidate who has raised over $50,000 this cycle is the besotted Tim Ryan, whose money will buy him something like seventh place.

If they were so proud of what they’ve done to Jill, Benjamin Pugh and the other directors at Atlas PAC would be anxious to disclose the source of the money, but these people are liars and cowards. They do not want voters to know who paid for their lies. They are hoping to do what their scum-sucking treasurer David Bauer does so well, hide the money, violate the law, and negotiate their fine down as a cost of doing business.

Every Huntington Beach voter should also make sure that they are NOT voting for the three candidates endorsed by Atlas PAC – Devin Dwyer, Dave Sullivan, and Erik Peterson, or Travis Allen. ( Dwyer has made some lame comments claiming he’s not a member of Atlas PAC, and that the mailers are “uncalled for.”)

About Surf Nemesis

14 Comments

Sadly, the younger, more attractive, more personable, and more intelligent a candidate is — and Hardy is all of these — the more critical its opposition may consider it to be to go after them in any which way possible.

That’s bad enough. But given David Bauer’s record, the failure to file documents revealing the sources of campaign funds looks willful. This should not be a slap-on-the-wrist matter, win or lose. If they’ve spent $90,000 just to go after one candidate — in a city where that approaches $1 per voter! — in an otherwise low-cost election, the FPPC should throw the book at them. And yes, the lesson for voters is that they should not only WANT Jill Hardy in office, but that they NEED Jill Hardy in office.

Evidently you are seeing the emergence of a new wing of the HB Political Machine. Evidently the Hansenites and the Garofolloweers are being pushed out by the Atlas and Pugh group. With the addition of Build the Bridge Harper, these Kingmakers Dwyer, Sullivan and Peterson control the 4 votes majority on the HB City Council. Now Newport Beach can have their 19th St Banning Bridge, and all open space can be paved over by the HB Political Machine developer buddies without even a protest. Banning Library will be closed along with Eader Park declared surplus so the HB Political Machine can build 55 houses. 10,000 cars will be added daily on Brookhurst as none of the new Council members live in the neighborhood. Fun times are ahead with more Bars in downtown HB.

It’s ridiculous that ‘surf nemesis’ is so upset about personal attacks against her favorite politician and then she proceeds to personally attack at least a half-dozen people that she doesn’t like for whatever reasons.

Way to miss the point. It’s not about the attacks. It’s about breaking the law by the cowardly liar Ben Pugh and his scum-sucking treasurer David Bauer, who are not filing the legally mandated campaign disclosures that would show who is paying the $90,000 and counting for four mailers into Huntington Beach by Atlas PAC.

Who put up the money? And why are they cowards about hiding it behind their Sacramento treasurer until after the election?

Just pointing out the players who are most likely behind the violation of campaign disclosure laws, and my sources are pretty good. If the coward Pugh and his co-conspirators had actually followed the law and disclosed the donors in a timely fashion, there would be no need to speculate. It would be right here http://cal-access.sos.ca.gov/Campaign/Committees/Detail.aspx?id=1279586 .

Didn’t Bauer agree to a settlement for campaign law violations that included a $49,000 fine?

And really, what do you consider insults? Didn’t the Red Zone candidates lose in 2010 and find new consultants other than Hansen’s wife for 2012? Maybe my source was wrong on that.

I read on this blog that Hansen’s colleagues on the City Council voted against his plan to put tolls on the 405 and joined other cities. The OC Register reported it, too.

So, other than using words like smarmy, it’s not really personal insults.

Excuse me guys, but since I know Mr. Pugh personally, as my attorney in Citizens for a Fair Trash Contract .v. City of Los Alamitos et al. I can state that Ben has never lied to me, that Ben took a case in which the people were fighting Troy Edgar and his corruption machine, and he gave 100% of his time and effort into making sure that the people of Los Alamitos were well represented, and won the case.

The Ben Pugh you write about is NOT the Ben Pugh I had the pleasure to be represented by. It is NOT the Ben Pugh who refused to drop the case when he was asked to by the well connected trash hauler consultant. It is NOT the Ben Pugh that argued Before Superior Court Justice Banks that Troy Edgar and his cronies violated the City Municipal Code, and won!

Based on my involvement with Mr. Pugh I can clearly state that he did his very best to represent the Citizens when they fought against Troy Edgar’s corruption (and one only has to look at Troy Edgar’s massive GOP endorsement list to see that in doing just that Ben Pugh was NOT thinking about the politics of the situation).

I don’t know about Atlas, but I do know a bit about Ben Pugh, and while he might make a wonderful target for your animosity, I would prefer to see a great deal more connection of the dots before you slam an attorney that has represented the citizens of a community against corruption before you toss around what appears to be unfounded accusations.

Ben did a great job for us in Los Alamitos. True he didn’t have the wherewithall to stop Judge Banks from leaving a loophole you could drive a truck through in his ruling, but that is an issue with Judge Banks, and not with the representation that was afford to us.

As a Democrat I don’t know much about Atlas PAC, but what I do know is… It should also be noted that even though Troy Edgar went to Atlas PAC and asked for their support, he didn’t get it (even though he got the endorsement from Harper), and that Atlas ended up supporting Travis Allen; the more honest of the two Republicans.

Just my two cents on your claims, and how I feel they may be out-of-line from reality as I know it. So, if you would be so kind to connect the dots with more than some “back slapping” you heard about from a source… I know I would appreciate it.

Mr. Pugh was my council as a member of Citizens for a Fair Trash Contract, not a “good friend”. Really? You got that I was his “good friend” from what I wrote?

When I write stuff about Troy Edgar on Let’s Fix Los Al (www.letsfixlosal.com) I always make sure I have the facts before I write it. If I am going to say that Troy Edgar violates the law, I should be able to point to actual points where he has, for instance, violated the Brown Act to support my claim that he has violated the law. When I say Troy Edgar is corrupt I can create a point-to-point analysis to show where he was paid off, who paid him off, and how he then gave them a contract that was in violation of the law (see blockquote below).

Before you toss a handful of dirt on someone you should make sure that they are connected to the dirt.

Here is all you have.

“Ben Pugh is on the board of Directors of Atlas PAC, Chair of their Endorsement Committee, and the largest donor from Huntington Beach.”

That’s it. Even you know it’s weak because you state “Maybe he knows what is going on.” Maybe he does, maybe he doesn’t. You have no idea, and neither does the author of the article. Yet with no actual evidence or even a series of connected dots there is a picture of Mr. Pugh with the caption “Lying Coward Ben Pugh”.

I have stated Mr. Pugh represented me (and through me the citizens of Los Alamitos) and did so honestly and against the wishes of the GOP political hierarchy that was attempting to protect Troy Edgar. That at no time did he lie to me, and that his actions of working against the political establishment to help the citizens of our community do not appear to me to be the actions of a coward.

In other words, the author has failed to connect the dots and make his case. Your “Maybe he knows what’s going on” is more proof that the case is far from made, else wise you would have said that it’s clear that he knows what’s going on and he should spill the beans. That Mr. Pugh is involved with Atlas, you will get no argument from me. That he is Chair of their Endorsement Committee, I believe he told me that himself, so again, no argument there, it appears factual.That he is the largest donor from HB? I have not looked at the records and don’t have the time or inclination to do so, but I’m willing to assume that he may be.

But not one piece of that factual data supports the claim that he is lying or a coward. Not one piece of that factual data connects Mr. Pugh to the mailers personally. And that was my point when I wrote my post. Either the original author should get the evidence to support his claims, or I believe Mr. Pugh is owed an apology and a correction should be published.

Example of connecting the dots:

– The largest campaign contributors to Troy Edgar’s campaign for City Council in his first run were people involved in the Trash Hauling industry.
– The trash hauling contract was to be renegotiated in the third year of his term
– It would be necessary to have three member of the City Council to support the trash hauler in getting the contract
– In the election just prior to the contract only two seats would be up for election
– The trash haulers had to get someone elected in the election Mr. Edgar ran in that would represent their interests as the third required vote three years after the election.
– Prior to the election that was just before the contract was due to be negotiated there was a vote to send the contract to bid (the first time in Los Al history) and that the bid would go to the “lowest responsible bidder”
– In the election just before the trash contract was to be voted on tens of thousands of dollars were spent by trash hauling interests to eliminate the council members that created that requirement and elect members that were more favorable to the existing trash hauler
– Troy Edgar and the two new council members violated the City Municipal Code in order to award the contract to the trash haulers that funded the anti-incumbent campaign and Troy Edgar’s campaign.

See how the dots are connected? That allows me to state that I believe that Troy Edgar exchanged his vote on the Solid Waste Franchise Agreement for campaign contributions three years prior to the contract. You can follow the dots and see how I got from point A to point B. That there was a necessity by the haulers to have that third vote assured before the election of the two additional seats.

From the above you can also see why I am supporting Travis Allen for AD-72.

Democrat Debbie Cook ran for Congress in 2008 while Mayor of Huntington Beach. Democrat Linda-Moulton Patterson ran for Orange County Supervisor in 1994 and California State Assembly in 1995 while on the Huntington Beach City Council before she pleaded guilty in court to filing false nomination papers.

Despite being termed out two years ago by the Huntington Beach City Charter, Jill Hardy is trying to get around term limits with her latest campaign.

A former member of the Electoral College for Al Gore in 2000 and a delegate to the Democratic National Convention in 2008, Jill Hardy is an almost certain candidate to follow in the footsteps of her predecessors Cook and Moulton-Patterson in running for higher office if the good old boys in the backroom like Tim Geddes, Milt Dardis, Gus Ayer and their friends in the HBPOA and HBFFA can get her back on the Council.

11/7/12
Everyday probably is Halloween for you and the people who are or become associated with you. When you’ve done 0.1 % of what these three have done for Huntington Beach as these three and a few others like them who have been on the city council and have been well known, recognized, dedicated citizens’ advocates, come back. Til then, you’ll probably be a big hit on Fox “News”.